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Thought for the Day:

 


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Paramahamsa Omkarananda Saraswati

 

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True Silence and Methods of Its Attainment

Many people think they can attain inner stillness through silent meditation, but they are unreceptive to the stillness that is omnipresent. They hear only noise everywhere.

All around there are distractions, all kinds of sounds come from every direction. While you are disturbed by the noise around you, my soul is in contact with the dimensions of the boundless silence within these sounds. I perceive the dimension of unending silence through my inner faculties - a dimension of absolute calm pervading and dwelling within all this incessant noise.

You cannot run away from the noise, and if you do, you flee also from God who is present in the noise. On the other hand if you stay in the midst of the noise without being able to perceive its inherent silence, you grow sick and get disturbed, distracted and nervous like any ordinary person.

True meditation is a great art. The soul alone knows this art. It is not described in books. Much work has to be done on oneself before one is able to listen to the eternal divine sounds. Great purification of the heart through unceasing selfless service, rigorous self-discipline, and cultivation of pure thoughts and feelings is necessary. It is essential to live for many years among people who are devoted to God and Truth. Many conditions have to be fulfilled, before one can be successful in controlling the mind and before the soul opens itself to the infinite silence of Truth.

People are misguided. They think by reading books on meditation and then meditating according to manual their success is assured, but even if by some magic they were transported directly into the heart of the Divinity, there they would not experience God, but the ineradicable thoughts and feelings that haunt them. They are not in a position to experience God on the restless surface of their being.

Even if you think you are calm and tranquil, in truth you are restless. Silence is something entirely different from keeping the body still and suppressing a few thoughts. When the surface of a lake is disturbed your face cannot be reflected clearly in it. In the same way Truth cannot be reflected in your mind as long as it is agitated. And your mind is always disturbed, always restless, even in deep-sleep, or when you believe yourself in deep meditation.

The most wonderful method of purification is mantra repetition. The mantra assumes the duty of creating all the necessary conditions and circumstances for your spiritual development and awakening the higher faculties of Truth-experience, till finally the mantra reveals itself to you as God, as Truth.

There are many methods of purification. We can wash clothes with water and soap, or we may dry-clean them chemically, or through heat or oxygen or radiation with shortwaves. In the same way there are many methods to purify the subconscious, the mind, the heart and the will.

Some saints purified themselves through the inner heat generated by severe austerities. But this is not the only method. One can purify oneself completely inside and outside through the fire of devotion, through the fire of the psychic energies released by mantra repetition, or through the fire of divine knowledge, meditation and contemplation.

You achieve more with the help of these spiritual disciplines than through any physical exercise. Constant repetition of the mantra generates a great psychic fire that burns completely all impurities of the body, heart, will and blood.

Let your mind be silent, while you repeat the mantra. Let your heart and soul be silent, let the depths of your consciousness be silent, let everything inside and outside be silent and establish in this stillness the presence of the infinite Truth, Beauty, Love, Light and Peace.

Silence is not an attribute of the body or of the outer world, not even of the mind. Silence of mind and body or of the outer surroundings is a superficial appearance that is not of any particular value. It may serve as an instrument, but true silence can be attained without such outer means.

- Swami Omkarananda
 

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